I'm remembering tonight how Ann Radcliffe said (rightly) after she and her husband had crossed a battlefield where thousands of horrifying deaths had occurred only recently: it's not true that war ends when a peace or truce is declared. War carries on long after the first overt demands of those who win: lost forever people, maimed bodies, troubled minds, no one forgets the experiences he or she has had.

The last few months it has become probable that US democracy consensus may be falling apart. Trump and his adherents talk of impeaching Clinton. This is the way elections worked in the 17th century: if you won, you put your opponent in jail; if they won, you went to court against the vote and tried to get a court to put you in their place. It may be temporary but now that these right wing fanatics see their power and have gotten away with so much, why not do more? They have not even questioned Obama's nominee for the supreme court; they got away with it, so now they are saying, they will wait the four years out. why not?

The Bundy family is now threatening to take over another federal place. Meanwhile Obama may say both sides on the Dakota pipeline should exercise restraint, but that's absurd, the Native Americans are demonstrating peacefully; it's the state that is beating, setting dogs on people, pepper spraying them, putting them and journalists in jail. What that suggests to my mind is the establishment that could stop the Trumpism won't or can't because they are so beholden to what's called the 1%. Right now in south American democracies are being brought down in other ways than the 1980s: the corporations have gotten smarter.

The LRB has several times provided a working explanation for what happened in the last 40 years with this utter turn to the right Informed essays with documentation (especially about organizations like ALEC): the right found they could get away with defunding all social programs, they could take over the airwaves; they could privatize the prisons; there was no one to stop them. They could undermine public education with ease. LeCarre's books have as their underlying thesis: see what is happening now that there is no effective force against militaristic capitalism (fascism). He shows us a world where police authorities have no respect for civil or any other political liberty, where gov't organizations support a terrifying arms industry and how individuals within these gov'ts grow super-rich.

A list-friend has written:

Reuters is reporting that a group of FBI agents are hostile to Hillary and are trying to influence the election.

This isn't so different from the Supreme Court handing the 2000 election to George Bush.

It's similar to the Watergate break-in that Nixon ordered, in order to interfere with the 1972 election.

It's similar to the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968, which allowed Nixon to win in 1968.

It's similar to the JFK assassination in 1963, which I think was a right-wing job, as were the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

Rightwing plutocrats and their henchmen will do what they can to thwart the will of the people -- whenever they canThe impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998-1999..

To go further back in time, my friend, a series of incidents which perhaps you remember as you are some years older than I -- during a 1948 election didn't Nixon say or have himself photographed finding incriminating papers on his opponent (whose character Nixon destroyed) in a pumpkin. It was an October surprise. As I recall my father said that Nixon said he couldn't say what was in these papers in this pumpkin -- for whatever reason he invented.

The FBI has done nothing about the armed insurrections of the Bundy family and they are going on to yet another site -- they threaten. The FBI has been trying to destroy BlackLivesMatter as well as active in the despicable things being done by military people in North Dakota over a pipeline which threatens to pollute the water supply of the Native Americans and will destroy their burial grounds.

Another list-friend who at first thought this column from the New York Times was not serious. I was in the UK this summer and did witness the continual excoriation of a decent popularly elected labor leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in just about all the newspapers; in ordinary conversation, the vote for Brexit was not against the neoliberal EU organization and banks, but against immigrants, filled with resentment and anger and a desire to shut out all competition and cooperation with people outside English itself (that means Scotland and Ireland), never mind the Continent and beyond.

The worry over the electorate: over the desire to throw a wrench, any wrench into the machinery of gov't: memories of the Brexit vote from the New York Times.

***************************What can one even seasoned girl do?

Hillary when young: she looks sure of herself here

So what I hope for is this: that Clinton wins big and assumes the power of the presidency because the democrats emerge as the majority party in the senate and the house. This will not make the forces for erosion, corrosion go away but it will make it much harder for them to have an effect immediately -- unless of course the Republicans and their adamently prejudiced and bigoted extremists decide to block everything she does -- this will then be an uphill fight. Can one do anything about the ignorant and maddened constituencies as well as the very wealthy who are willing to support them? Only slowly for some (the impoverished), for others one could try to change FCC rules to declare a show which is not news but lying propaganda, entertainment.

She then has to enact good and decent wide-ranging programs. She has to put up the tax rate of the very rich and make corporations pay -- not just a share, but what they proportionally should, as they make on tax-dollars. Control the banks. Does she have the stomach for this? will she?She has a good track record for smaller and woman's causes: women's rights, children's rights, workers' rights, taxes, immigration, for gun control, for ending the school to prison pipeline, she believes in global warming. Her hawkishness and pro-Israeli gov't policy is worrying She does not seem to have the temperament to overturn the last 40 years damage as (like Obama) she has participated in some of it, especially violent colonialism, the beginning of mass incarceration, the destruction of welfare (especially hard on women and children), but her record is one of socially progressive laws and programs within the US. She's got a tin ear but she won't ratchet up hate. She has principles, is an intelligent principled perceptive woman. When confronted with Trump three times, each time she beat back his rhetoric and exposed him as a dangerous dictatorship rapist-male. See Katha Pollit on why one should vote for Hillary Clinton.

I hope she will begin by putting Obama's nominee on the supreme court, not because I'm so desirous of a middle-of-the-road man politically but because Obama nominated him and he should have had his confirmation hearing long ago -- he is apparently a decent and intelligent man.

You ask me why I smilewhen you tell me you intendin the coming national electionsto hold your noseand vote for the lesser of two evils.There are more than two evils out there,is one reason I smile.Another is that our old buddy Nostradamuscomes to mind, with his fearful400 year old prophecy: that our worldand theirs too(our "enemies" – lots of kids included there)will end (by nuclear nakba or holocaust)in our lifetime. Which makes the idea of electionsand the billions of dollars wasted on themsomewhat fatuous.A Southerner of Color,my people held the votevery dearwhile others, for centuries,merely appeared to playwith it.One thing I can assureyou of is this:I will never betray such pure heartsby voting for evileven if it were microscopicwhich, as you can see in any newscastno matter the slant,it is not.I want something else;a different systementirely.One not seenon this earthfor thousands of years. If ever.Democratic Womanism.Notice how this word has "man" right in the middle of it?That’s one reason I like it. He is right there, front and center. But he is surrounded.I want to vote and work for a way of lifethat honors the feminine;a way that acknowledgesthe theft of the wisdomfemale and dark Mother leadershipmight have provided our spaceshipall along.I am not thinkingof a talking headkind of gal:happy to be mixingit upwith the baddestbad boyson the planether eyes a slither mouth a zipper.No, I am speaking of trueregime change.Where women riseto take their placeen masseat the helmof earth’s frail and failing ship;where each thousand yearsof our silenceis examinedwith regret,and the cruel manner in which our valuesof compassion and kindnesshave been ridiculedand suppressedbrought to bear on the disasterof the present time.The past must be examined closely, I believe, before we can leaveit there.I am thinking of Democratic, and, perhapsSocialist, Womanism.For who else knows so deeplyhow to share but Mothersand Grandmothers? Big sistersand Aunts?To loveand adoreboth female and male?Not to mention those in between.To work at keepingthe entire communityfed, educatedand safe?Democratic womanism,Democratic SocialistWomanism,would have as its iconssuch fierce warriorsfor good asVandana ShivaAung San Suu Kyi,Wangari MaathaiHarriet TubmanYoko OnoFrida KahloAngela Davis& Barbara Lee:With new ones always rising, wherever you look.

You are also on this list, but it is so long (Isis would appear midway) that I must stop or be unable to finish the poem! So just know I’ve stood you in a circle that includes Marian Wright Edelman, Amy Goodman, Sojourner Truth, Gloria Steinem and Mary McLeod Bethune. John Brown, Frederick Douglass, John Lennon and Howard Zinn are there. Happy to be surrounded!

There is no systemThere is no systemnow in placethat can changethe disastrous coursethe Earth is on.Who can doubt this?The male leadersof Earthappear to have abandonedtheir very sensesthough most appearto live nowentirelyin their heads.They murder humans and otheranimalsforests and rivers and mountainsevery daythey are in officeand never seemto notice it.They eat and drink devastation.Women of the world,Women of the world,Is this devastation Us?Would we kill whole continents for oil(or anything else)rather than limitthe number of consumer offspring we produceand learn how to make our own fire?Democratic Womanism.Democratic Socialist Womanism.A system of governancewe can dream and imagine and build together. One that recognizesat least six thousand yearsof brutally enforced complicityin the assassinationof Mother Earth, but foresees six thousand yearsahead of us when we will not submit.What will we need? A hundred yearsat least to plan: (five hundred will be handed usgladlywhen the planet is scared enough)in which circles of women meet,organize ourselves, and,allied with menbrave enough to stand with women,men brave enough to stand with women,nurture our planet to a degree of health.And without apology —-(impossible to makea bigger mess than has been made already) -—devote ourselves, heedless of opposition,to tirelessly serving and resuscitating Our Mother shipand with gratitudefor Her care of usworshipfully committorehabilitating it.

To sum up: Let us put Hillary Clinton into the white house but it's a small move -- without also voting democratic to give her a working majority in the house and senate! So let's do that too -- all liberal democratic people you can see or hope for .

And then we must see her offered solutions, what is her record and then distinguish what can she hope to do quickly and then over 4 years.

Two nights from now it won't be over; it will be beginning again to try to defeat what's being called Trumpism ...

"I would be glad to see the Senate go Democratic. There's little chance on the House, and much as that will gridlock things, it may be an OK outcome for two reasons: first, if people are angry in two years, as they no doubt will be short of the Second Coming, who to blame won't be clear cut: it won't be just a case of "throw the (Democratic) bums out." Maybe it will be "throw the Republican bums out" and Clinton can actually move forward for two years after having laid her groundwork. Also, as some more cynical minds (Chris Hedges, eg) say, a divided house could make it harder for Clinton to sell us down the river with TPP ... they most dread a coalition of Clinton forces with so-called "moderate" Republicans, which might happen under a Dem house. If they Repubs keep the house, they can't very well (I hope) be passing trade agreements severely unpopular with their base and plan to survive. Anyway, it will be interesting ...